Maurice Lucas, 58, N.B.A. Star, Dies

By RICHARD GOLDSTEIN

Published: November 2, 2010

Maurice Lucas, the bruising All-Star forward known as the Enforcer who helped lead the Portland Trail Blazers to their only N.B.A. championship, died Sunday at his home in Portland, Ore. He was 58.

His death was announced by the team. Lucas had surgery for bladder cancer in the spring of 2009 but was hospitalized that fall for a recurrence of cancer. He was an assistant coach for the Trail Blazers in recent years.

Lucas was a rugged defender and an outstanding rebounder, capable of a sturdy pick and a timely basket on offense. Possessing a glare that presumably intimidated many an opposing player, he became the prototype power forward when he emerged as a star for the Trail Blazers in the late 1970s.

''There's nobody can contest him inside,'' Bill Cartwright said when he played center alongside Lucas on the Knicks in the early 1980s. ''Anybody tries, they're going to be in a lot of trouble.''

In his rookie season in the N.B.A., Lucas teamed with center Bill Walton on the Trail Blazers team that defeated the Philadelphia 76ers for the 1977 league championship. Lucas averaged 20.2 points during the regular season, then played a major role when Portland posted four straight victories over Philadelphia after losing the first two games of the finals.

The Trail Blazers took charge after a long-remembered melee in Philadelphia near the end of Game 2. Darryl Dawkins, the 76ers' 6-foot-11, 250-pound center, tangled with Trail Blazers forward Bob Gross after they went for a rebound. Lucas, 6-9 and 220 pounds or so, came to the aid of Gross, punching Dawkins in the back of the head as coaches, bench players and fans streamed onto the court.

Both Lucas and Dawkins were ejected, but the Trail Blazers had shown their toughness. Lucas scored 27 points in the next game, and Portland was on its way to the championship.

''He really liked being the enforcer-type player,'' Jack Ramsay, the coach of that Trail Blazers team and now a radio broadcaster for ESPN, told the newspaper The Oregonian on Sunday. ''A great rebounder. A great outlet passer. Then he could score on the post, make jump shots on the perimeter. But mostly it was his physical persona that he carried with him that made us a different team.''

Bill Walton's son Luke, who plays for the Los Angeles Lakers, is named for Lucas.

Mike Dunleavy Sr., a member of the 76ers team that lost to the Blazers in the 1977 championship series, referred to Lucas as Bogie when both were playing. As Dunleavy told The Los Angeles Times in 1985, ''Maurice treats all of us like Bogart treated his women -- with the back of his hand.''

Lucas grew up in Pittsburgh, where he was born on Feb. 18, 1952. He starred at Marquette University, joining with Bo Ellis in taking the team to the 1974 N.C.A.A. tournament championship game. Marquette lost in the final to North Carolina State, led by David Thompson. Lucas joined the American Basketball Association after his junior season and played for the Spirits of St. Louis and the Kentucky Colonels.

After two seasons in the A.B.A., Lucas joined the Trail Blazers in August 1976 when the league was merged into the N.B.A. Lucas was voted to the All-Star Game in each of his three full seasons with the Trail Blazers and was named an all-N.B.A. defensive player twice.

But the Trail Blazers never made it back to the league finals with Lucas, and they traded him to the Nets in February 1980.

The Nets sent Lucas to the Knicks in October 1981. He played one season for them, spent three seasons with the Phoenix Suns, where he earned a fourth All-Star selection, then finished his career with the Los Angeles Lakers, the Seattle SuperSonics and a second stint with the Trail Blazers.

He averaged 14.4 points and 8.8 rebounds for his 12 N.B.A. seasons.

After retiring as a player and serving in his first stint as a Trail Blazer assistant coach, in 1988-89, Lucas owned a sports and event marketing company.

He is survived by his second wife, Pamela; a daughter, Kristin; two sons, Maurice Jr. and David; and a grandson.

Lucas took pride in his icy on-court visage, but as the years went by, he bristled at his tough-guy image.

''I played very hard and very physical, but I thought I also played pretty smart because I studied my opponents rabidly,'' he told The New York Times in 2004. ''So I knew their tendencies and things I could take away from them on defense.''

As for his fight with Dawkins: ''More than anything else in my career, I've been reminded of that incident and reminded of the fact that I was a real physical player. I'm not reminded of the fact that I was the leading scorer on those teams that I played on. But the old saying goes, 'As long as they remember you, you can't be mad.' ''

This is a more complete version of the story than the one that appeared in print.

PHOTO: Maurice Lucas, center, in 1979. He helped lead the Portland Trail Blazers to their only N.B.A. championship in 1977. (PHOTOGRAPH BY PAUL BENOIT/ASSOCIATED PRESS)